Thursday, 29 May 2014

The camera still scanning the bean field picked up an alien living among the beans.

What do you think this can be?

This is what we normally see when a fox triggers the camera to shoot.

As the rain continued to fall we watched from the comfort of the lounge as newly hatched blue tits, great tits and a family of 7 Jackdaws fed from our bird feeders.

This white tailed fox has still not worked out how to get the eggs from under the bowl.

Late at night a fox without a white tip to its tail brought three cubs to the camera. There is a short video here:-http://youtu.be/WUhuY0nkvZg

Watch the video to see the alien and its mate by the bowl and it is really easy to identify.

Meanwhile the white hen has hatched 4 "silky" chicks overnight and she has changed from a cuddly soft toy into a miniature "Tyrannosaurus Rex" , trying to kill my hand as I removed the spent shells and 2 infertile eggs.

Wednesday, 28 May 2014

The camera picked up a fox roaming about alone. It looks young but not this year's. The cubs and vixen have apparently moved away which is a relief as far as my fowl are concerned.

The daylight lasts from 4am to almost 10pm and the days are still lengthening so there is more chance of seeing the wild animals in full colour but there are not so many about this year, however the local muntjak visited.

Tuesday, 27 May 2014

It would appear that the vixen has taken her cubs away as we have not seen any sign of them for days.

This picture (taken with an automatic night vision trail camera) is the only shot of a fox for 24 hours and it did not stay long even with the temptation of 6 duck eggs under the cover. Too soon to relax and let my girls roam free though and they would be bound to dig up my young flowers anyway.

The maternity ward is in full swing with 6 Silkies due to hatch this week to be followed by 6 call ducks, 3 Marron hens, and 4 Appleyard ducks. The doves have 4 youngsters just getting their feathers.

Baby wild Coal Tits, baby Great Tits and a baby Magpie all visited the feeding station yesterday.

Sunday, 25 May 2014

Due to boring Spanish football on the TV and long wet rain showers it was near 9pm when Barney and I went over to the Badger sett to position the camera last night.

The badgers were already awake and beginning to stir and could be seen just inside the sett mouth.
I signalled to Barney to be "quiet" and gradually 4 Badgers emerged. One walked just 6 feet passed me into the trees and towards Barney who was very interested. We were both on the edge of the bean field and there is a thin strip of woodland between it and the airfield. The badgers have paths throughout this strip which are quite impenetrable to me but which Barney can manage with ease.

I was very relieved that he did not bolt in but stayed quietly with me.

Saturday, 24 May 2014

I love my simple home life so I go out in my car rarely.
This is most economic and good for the planet but it has an unexpected drawback living on the edge of vast English countryside.

On my latest journey in the car I thought I would use up my Tesco discount and fill the car and some cans (for the garden machines). When I arrived there was a bit of a queue and the sun was in hot blast mode so I thought it would be good to give the aircon a go. Wow! what a strange noise and a lot of vibration from the power plant. I switched it off and opened the windows instead.

Investigation showed that my static vehicle awaiting its call to duty had been accepted by the local wild life as part of their environment and some homeless mouse(?) had started re-cycling the engine insulation and re-using it as a snug nest in the fan chamber!

It's all cleaned out now and works fine. The mouse? No idea but look for him near Tesco's.

Friday, 23 May 2014

Quite a quiet wet morning in the garden mainly spent in the poly-tunnel where warm summer could still be enjoyed and we were able to supervise the fowl without excitement. The doves are busy with two pairs of twins to attend. If they mature our flock will number 10. We also have 4 broody hens and a broody duck.
Heavy rain trapped us with them for some time before we were able to return to the house and the joys of daytime TV.

We caught up on the "Tour of Italy" cycle race which was frequently interrupted by mini power cuts as the thunder storms raged all around. Eventually the power went out for good at 4pm. All the neighbours WiFi signals disappeared from my Kindle so I knew it wasn't just us but would anyone have phoned the power company or should I?

Well I did, and they knew and estimated the transformer fault would be cleared by 6:30pm. Having once been an Electrical Engineer who cleared a Transformer fault in a record 5 days by replacing it with a spare I questioned their reasoning but power came back at 6:15pm so it either was not a transformer fault or they have an alternative way of feeding us.

Doesn't it take an age to re-set all the clocks and re-tune the radio?

Thursday, 22 May 2014

Yesterday my morning walk round the garden revealed a bright deep red fox standing in the sheep field watching me. No exercise for the fowls then. They remained confined.

After lunch I supervised a walk and scratch around but needed to visit the greenhouse for some plants. As I started my return the beta cockerel gave his alarm call and all hell broke loose. Three brown hens shot towards me shedding masses of feathers in their wake. Barney barked and shot between the bird accelerating into the distance. The five ducks appeared and walked into their compound slightly nervously. The alpha cockerel was making a fuss in the sheep field. The black and the white hens were very frightened and difficult to coax into their compound. There was a mound of feathers just outside the poly-tunnel!

My hero, Barney is looking forward to the World Cup.

Barney pursued the trail right across the bean field and into the copse on the edge of the airfield. I could see the odd brown feather dropped along the route and assumed that foxy had got one of my girls. We returned and got all the girls home but one. Missing! Gone! Just a pile of soft feathers.

No. We found a perfect, untouched brown hen happy clearing up fallen bird food right by the house, oblivious to any drama.

All returned to their compound a closer inspection revealed that one of the first to go home was short of quite a few feathers but otherwise ok. Another victory for Barney.

I wish I could see the fox's face when he stopped his flight from Barney and set to enjoy his meal only to discover he had a mouth full of feathers without a single chicken nugget!

Heavy rain all night and the camera only showed a blurred Muntjak feeding in the bean field.

Wednesday, 21 May 2014

The white hen is sitting tight on 6 "silky" eggs which are due to hatch at the end of next week. She is in a rearing house close up by our house to reduce the risk if fox attack.

One brown hen has been settled in another rearing house and I have just given her 6 Call duck eggs.

Both of these clutches were purchased on E Bay and have travelled through the post so fertility is a gamble. The first 6 miniature call duck eggs I purchased this year spent 4 weeks in the incubator but only one reached hatching stage and died before breaking out of the shell. Probably just as well as it had a deformed beak.

Meanwhile 2 other brown hens are in reserve sitting on snooker balls in the hen house and our only duck (a female duck is confusingly a duck whilst a male duck is a drake!) has 2 eggs left in her nest. I removed something like 50 eggs this spring as I cannot allow the duck flock to grow. These ducks were a mistake as I purchased "Appleyards" in stead of Call ducks. They look the same but Appleyards are twice the size and are reluctant to fly so are easily caught by the foxes.

Random placing of the automatic camera shows that the foxes go everywhere around and in the garden at any time of the day or night.

I played a BBC (Tweet of the day) recording of a Garden Warbler to our visiting bird and he seemed very interested but it was not a scientific test and he might have been just as interested in the narrator!

Monday, 19 May 2014

Today we identified the fine song, but dull plumage, of a bird that thrills us with his songs sung at the far (and wild) end of our garden. It is a Garden Warbler. A summer visitor we had not noticed before.
Slightly more exciting I heard the male cuckoo calling. I have not heard that visitor for a good 10 years. Welcome back!

The Badger cubs were very boisterous again and once more knocked the camera over so that I have very little to see except them "play" fighting.

This morning, whilst well down the garden and close to the house the chickens (enjoying a supervised stroll) were attacked by a young fox. The beta cock was grabbed but unharmed as Barney and I rushed to their assistance. The fox dropped the cock and jumped the wire fence clambering through the bushes and escaping. It took a while to round all the fowl up as they were all rather excited bit all were accounted for and secured.

Saturday, 3 May 2014

Last night we were warned to protect our baby plants as the weather people predicted frost with temperatures falling to 3C. Actually my thermometer recorded -1.9C (28.6F) so we may have lost some fruit and blossom.
The foxes seemed to know something was not going to be to their liking as there was a lot of calling and on our final walk of the evening Barney found a cub hiding in the bean field. Perhaps the Vixen moved them to a new home. Time will tell.
The camera was by the Badger sett but my positioning was very poor and the shots are not good as they are mainly of trees! However they do show that at around 4am the badger sitting directly under the camera (and occasionally knocking it) was producing thermals with visible water vapour. I have repositioned the camera for today.
A Muntjak was at the bottom of the garden as barney and I went to recover the SD card and Barney sat and watched as it scuttled away to the airfield boundary.